Comment by not_your_vase 6 months ago
Dibs on being a politician. I have never heard about a starving one, and it doesn't require an awful lot of skills beside being a good liar. (This is only half-joke. I do have some vague aspirations for changing some public stuff that grind my gears)
The most essential talent required of politicians is to extract the greatest amount of donations, funding for themselves and their party. Below the media polished image, it is all about money. Power is about being able to get the money.
I hadn't realized America glorifies the almighty dollar to the extent that it does until recently. Everything boils down to this; I feel like a fool.
That's an extremely uncharitable take. Especially when nothing about the post suggested that.
The deeper point is that the skills that were mentioned are very important in terms of getting along with a variety of people.
>nothing about the post suggested that.
>[they] are good at spinning answers to make everyone hear what they wanted to hear.
To me that definitely reads like the original comment was alluding to an ability to bend the truth or frame things in an advantageous way, which is essentially lying's brother, manipulation.
Besides, politicians have earned their reputation a hundred times over. Good luck convincing anyone that it's unfair to suggest politicians are liars.
I similarly half-joke about the same thing. Being "replaced by AI" would be the kick in the pants to finally make a run of it.
In Seattle, I feel like I could get really far on a dumb, single-issue platform: "I will fix the potholes on 1st ave." I won't talk about anything except that. I'll only try to accomplish that. And then I'll leave.
One of the most though-provoking things that I've heard AOC say is (paraphrasing), "I'm not a very good politician, but I'm an excellent public servant."
Wish there were more like her!
> I have never heard about a starving one
Politics make Silicon Valley startup culture like a stable career. You only hear about non-starving politicians because you only hear about the successful ones. Politics is extremely hard which is why only people with no technical skills can make it (they max out on emotional/social skills).
In my experience, it does require a lot of skills. You won't notice them if you only interact with politicians through reading about them in the news, but successful politicians have a lot of charisma, are very good at remembering names and faces of people they meet once at a crowded party, and are good at spinning answers to make everyone hear what they wanted to hear.